Under Shadows. Jason LaPier

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СКАЧАТЬ hadn’t been at the docks. The issuing company being the same Modern Policing and Peacekeeping that had wrongfully extradited Jax from Terroneous. Though technically Runstom worked for the Defense division, his ties with Justice strained.

      Jax blew out a long sigh, trying to determine the best way to break the news about Runstom’s ship, then just decided to blurt it out. “Dava took it.”

      “Dava?”

      “Space Waster.”

      “Sonova—”

      “But she’ll bring it back.” Jax leaned in a little closer. “Look, Stan, I know you’re going to be pissed about this. But I promise you, they’ll bring the ship back.”

      “They?” Runstom’s eyes burned and his lips drew taut. “How many are there?”

      “Just three,” Jax said quickly. “They stowed away. Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. Please understand – I just didn’t want any more violence. They promised me they’d keep to themselves.”

      Runstom looked down and away. “Violence.”

      The drinks arrived and Jax knew he’d have to sit in silence for a few moments while Runstom processed this. He always had a way in his head, a way that things should be done, and when they weren’t done that way, he had to reason out why. In this case, he probably felt that Jax should have alerted him right away that there were stowaways on board, so that he could summarily arrest them. But that’s not what happened. Jax knew that Runstom would have to ponder why things didn’t go the way they were supposed to, and that it meant he would have to take a moment to see it from Jax’s perspective. But he would, eventually. Or at least he’d try.

      Jax took a sip of his brandy. It was like sweet fire in his throat. It reminded him of the last conversation he had with Dava, stowed away and pilfering Runstom’s liquor supply. Threats had been exchanged, but they were all just trying to survive. Despite Space Waste being a pack of bloodthirsty gangbangers, he owed them. Sort of. When ModPol had picked him up on Terroneous, it was Dava and her crew that had intercepted him. Rescued him from wrongful imprisonment, but not to grant him his freedom; instead to recruit him for their own purposes. A harrowing experience, if temporary.

      “Three of them and two of us,” Runstom said. “If you hadn’t made a deal, they’d have taken it by force.”

      “Probably,” Jax said after a burning swallow. He decided not to remark that two of us was an exaggeration, given his uselessness in any such altercation. None of the various custodian, technician, and operator positions he’d held in the domes required anything remotely resembling combat training, and even during his short time on Terroneous, he’d stayed as far away from trouble as possible. Or had tried to, anyway.

      “And they were supposed to disappear once we landed.”

      Jax frowned and nodded. “Well, that was the deal.”

      “What makes you think they’ll be back?”

      He shrugged. “That OrbitBurner doesn’t have a Xarp drive, so no FTL. Space Waste has zero presence out here in Eridani, and these three are on the run. So they’ll need another way back to Barnard or Sirius.”

      Runstom seemed to turn that over in his mind, then he took a pull of his dark beer. “That won’t be easy.”

      “No, I don’t suppose so.”

      “What’s the other reason?”

      Jax hadn’t alluded to a second reason, but Runstom wasn’t going to let him get off that easily. “I gave them something.”

      “You gave them—” Runstom started, then stopped and his eyes narrowed. “You mean information.”

      “Yes,” Jax said. “On our way to the docks, you were telling me about something your mom said. About someone going into Space Waste, someone who was undercover.”

      Runstom flinched slightly at the mention of his mother. They’d only talked to her a few hours ago, and it had definitely changed the man. Jax was pretty sure they hadn’t seen each other in several years, at least in person. And with her being in some kind of witness protection relocation deal, the communication between them had been poor to say the least. Her name was Sylvia Runstom, though she was now going by Sylvia Rankworth, and she was Assistant Director of Agricultural Systems on Epsilon Eridani-3. Jax got the impression that she still kept up with some of the networks she’d acquired while she did undercover work herself, back before her son Stanford was born, well over three decades ago.

      “Yes,” Runstom said, glancing over his shoulder. “You said you might be able to identify one or two Wasters that didn’t fit in.”

      “There was definitely one guy who was up to something,” Jax said. “His name was Basil Roy. He was a programmer – not an operator like me, but a real engineer.”

      “Doesn’t sound the gangbanger type.”

      “No, he wasn’t.” Jax took another sip, hoping the brandy would lubricate his memory. “They were having him write software to interface with this special detection equipment. Stuff they lifted from somewhere.”

      “Vulca.”

      “What? Yeah, that sounds familiar. What’s Vulca?”

      Runstom sighed. “One of the moons around Sirius-5. There’s a big research base there. And I was there when Space Waste attacked it.”

      “What, really? You – were there? Doing what?”

      He nodded. “Same thing I’m doing here. Selling ModPol Defense services.” Before Jax could ask more, Runstom waved dismissively. “I know, Sirius-5 is already a ModPol subscriber. But ModPol wanted to force the moon – Vulca – to get a separate contract. Figured they had money to spend with all the research funds pouring into their facility.”

      “And did they?”

      Runstom looked at Jax in silence for a moment. “Well, yeah. After Space Waste attacked them, they realized the value of having ModPol around. We had a trial unit of Defenders there. Not a large one, but enough to rout the Wasters.”

      “I see,” Jax said. “But not before they made off with some equipment.”

      Runstom laughed for the first time all day, though it was more of a short huff than anything. “All this new equipment. The techs just installed it. They put the old gear in the empty boxes so they could ship it out for resale.”

      Jax thought about it. “So the Wasters stole what they thought was brand-new equipment, and what they got were new boxes with old stuff in it?”

      “Yep.”

      “So it was never going to work,” Jax said. “Which didn’t matter, since Basil Roy spoofed the detection software. It led them right where he wanted it to.”

      Runstom took another quiet pull. “There’s still a question of why.”

      Now it was Jax’s turn to huff a laugh. “To make them think they could get the jump on the ModPol transport. They thought the stolen tech helped them zero in on it СКАЧАТЬ